Guest Post: What Washington Apple Growers Can Teach You About Guest Posting
I grew up in Washington state, home of some of the best apples in the world.
When I was a kid, I thought this was a lie. Every apple that I ever remember eating seemed dry, mealy, and devoid of any sweetness or flavor. Were these the same apples that people would buy at ridiculous prices in Paris and New York? What were they smoking?
It wasn’t until taking Economics 101 that I found out why Washington Apples seemed so unspectacular. They shipped all the good apples out. The leftovers were for Washington state natives to consume.
Although I’m a little angry that I was forced to suffer a childhood without good apples, I realized that “shipping the good apples out” is actually an excellent business practice. Not only is it good for Washington state apple growers, but it’s good for bloggers as well.
These two factors make “shipping the best out” a good idea:
1. Transportation Cost
2. The Opportunity to Create a Premium Brand
Transportation Cost
Let’s say that a mediocre apple in Washington State is $0.50 and a premium apple is $1.50. Because the cost of a premium apple in Washington State is three times the price of a mediocre apple, people will most likely prefer three mediocre apples to one premium apple.
If you ship the apples to Paris, however, there’s a transportation cost involved. Let’s say that it costs an additional $2.50 to ship each one. Add the transportation cost and your mediocre apple becomes $3 and your premium apple becomes $4. Although the actual cost difference is still one dollar, the relative cost is greatly reduced. A premium apple no longer costs three mediocre apples, but only 1.25 mediocre apples.
The buyers in Paris, when faced with the choice of buying a mediocre apple at $3 and a premium apple at $4, will be much more likely to buy premium than the buyers in Washington State. This is why the premium apples are shipped as far as conceivably possible from where they’re grown. Although premium apples will always be more expensive than mediocre ones no matter where you go, the relative price between the two can vary wildly. Whenever the price difference between mediocre and premium is relatively low, premium will win.
Transportation cost on the internet can be interpreted as: “The trouble you have to go through to get the content you want.” Subscribers to your blog are like Washingtonians. In order to read your blog posts, they don’t have to expend much effort or energy. The article from your blog pops into their RSS feed and all your subscriber has to do is click on it and read it. Because the “transportation cost” is so low, they’ll be much more likely to appreciate your mediocre articles. If they had to surf the web for one hour to get to that mediocre article, their appreciation of the article would be severely reduced.
Non-subscribers to your blog have a lot more transportation cost to deal with. If they click from your guest post to your blog’s home page, they’ll have to navigate through an unfamiliar website, unsure if there’s good content or if they’re wasting their time. If you write a brilliant guest post, however, they’ll be more likely to expect premium content on your blog, and thus be more willing to brave an unfamiliar site. It’s a lot of work for them, but if they expect to find content of a similar quality to your premium guest post on your website, they’ll be more likely to take the plunge.
Whenever you write an article that you’re particularly proud of, the impulse is to post it on your own site right away to make your subscribers happy. If it’s really that good however, you should consider exporting. Don’t hide your best work in your blog’s archive. Do what you can to…
Create a Premium Brand
According to the Washington State Apple commission, the growers there produce about 100 million 42lb. bushel cartons of apples per year. 30 million of these are exported worldwide. You can bet that most of these exported apples are premium.
Examplevania is another place that produces a lot of apples. In fact, Examplevania produces nearly 150 million bushels. Of these 150 million, 70 million are premium. For this fact alone Examplevanian apples should be called the best in the world, but there’s a good reason they aren’t.
Examplevania exports a lot of apples overseas–nearly 100 million bushels. The problem is that Examplevania keeps a lot of the premium apples for domestic consumption, and only ships 15 million premium ones overseas. The result is that Washington Apples outnumber Examplevanian apples on the premium shelf by a ratio of 2 to 1. Meanwhile, there’s an overabundance of Examplevanian apples in the mediocre barrel.
The Examplevanian apple commission made a serious marketing blunder. Despite the fact that they produce more premium apples than Washington does, they decided to export a mix of mediocre and premium instead of premium only. Although Examplevanian apples really do deserve to be called the best in the world, they lost that title when their carelessness resulted in an overabundance of mediocre in the stores. Most American grocery shoppers have never been to Examplevania and don’t know how good the apples really are. The only way they could judge quality was by what they saw in the store.
Don’t make the same mistake that the Examplevanians did. If you write something that you consider your best work, showcase it elsewhere. Your subscribers already know how good you are. Now, let the rest of the world know.
Kenji Crosland is a former headhunter and English teacher who currently blogs about creating an ideal career at unreadyandwilling.com. He is also a novice web application developer and plans to launch his first community driven site early this year.
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About Gilbert: Gilbert Ross also writes about inner development, mindfulness and conscious living on his blog Soul Hiker. You can subscribe to his feeds here or follow him on Twitter here. |
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@Kenji: Brilliant analogy for guest posting. I cant’ tell you how much of my awesome content I probably wasted on my own blog that would have been accepted somewhere else. This is one of the best pieces of advice on guest posting I’ve seen and a great way to describe and dissect it.
Thanks Srini,
It can sometimes be hard to give away your best stuff to other blogs but I do think it is the best marketing tactic. Of course, you don’t want to fill your own blog with mediocre posts either. I think a good rule of thumb is posting some mediocre and some premium on your own blog but be sure to make ALL your guest posts premium.
Kenji:
You have used your knowledge of economics to good use. Thank you.
However, I beg to differ on one point (with due respect, of course).
Perceptions differ. Thus, what seems your best work to you may appear mediocre to others. This has happened to me so many times.
For example, I have sent some of my “best” work to be published and it was rejected. Sometimes, I did not even receive a rejection slip. Maybe the editor was in a bad mood, I thought!
On the other hand, I have been pleasantly surprised to find some of my mediocre work published–truly astonishing experience.
I think the point I am making here is quite important to understand. However, I encourage you to keep up the good work.
Your ideas are original and deserve to be showcased more often.
@Archan
You make an excellent point. Sometimes we really don’t know how the public will receive our own work. I remember one writer who said one of his weaker stories was the one that was “almost almost” chosen for inclusion in the New Yorker.
I suppose one way you could go about submitting guest posts is to send out as many as you can regardless of whether you yourself think they are quality or not. The posts that get rejected can always be posted on your own blog.
I’m looking to get the iPad. Does anyone have any recommendations on which memory would best suit me if I wanted to watch a few movies?